


Like water in your hands

by evie_everyday



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Banter, But only a little, Canon Era, Court Sorcerer Merlin (Merlin), Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Sharing a Bed, because what else do i write at this point, first and foremost, obligatory merlin/gwaine friendship scene, post-canon but where arthur doesn't die, they're canonically soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:01:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29037543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evie_everyday/pseuds/evie_everyday
Summary: “It’s funny,” Merlin says, poking at the mattress, “I never dreamed about being burnt when Uther was king.”It makes Arthur’s chest hurt, to think of what he used to think of magic, what he used to say, so he doesn’t say anything for a long time.Then, once the remark has lost its potency, he looks at Merlin. “I promise, I’ll never let anyone hurt you.”**One-shot
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 216





	Like water in your hands

**Author's Note:**

> What is this, me emerging from the abyss of unfinished works to drop another random one-shot I've had floating around for awhile? What a shocker.
> 
> Another shocker, if you've been around for awhile, is that this is pretty much Arthur pining like everything else I've ever written in my life. I hope you all aren't sick of it at this point because I'll never be sick of writing it.
> 
> You guys are always so incredibly supportive and I appreciate you all so so much! I hope you enjoy this one :)
> 
> I'm on a Phoebe Bridgers kick right now, so the title is from "Moon Song."

Merlin stands in the courtyard, looking at the funeral pyre. Watching as what remains of Gaius’ body burns away, ashes to be scattered to the wind.

But he’s lost a father before.

He can do it again.

He stands until it is only him and Arthur standing next to him, a solemn hand set on his shoulder. 

“I’m sorry,” he says finally, and Merlin doesn’t have it in him to make a quip about apologies and his royal ass finally making one. 

He just stares at the flames that creep over Gaius’ body and bind him to the wood. 

It’s a long time before Arthur leaves his side.

When he goes to his chambers, an owl rests on the windowsill. It gazes at Merlin with knowing eyes and what almost looks like a quirked eyebrow. A small smile tugs at Merlin’s lips as the owl leaps into the night sky.

He dreams of fire.

Thick, inescapable fire that claws at his skin and his lungs and his mind until he is made of nothing but flames and ashes.

He dreams of the pyre, of failure. 

Then the world snaps into focus as he chokes on his breath. He sits up, sputtering, feeling warm hands on his back and chest and water dripping off of his hair. 

He sees Gwaine’s eyes first. He’s hardly ever seen Gwaine afraid, but his eyes are wide. 

Then he realizes it’s not Gwaine’s but Arthur’s hands on his back and chest as he gasps for air. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he wheezes, but his throat is on fire. He pulls away, a hand on his throat, before he realizes how scared Arthur looks as well. 

“You were drowning,” Arthur says, his voice tight, and Merlin blinks at him. Arthur keeps his hands on Merlin, tugging him close, eyes are fixed on his. “There was so much water. Everywhere.” Merlin registers the dampness of his clothing and hair. 

“Oh.” He runs a hand through his hair, trying to shake out some of it. Arthur’s arms get in the way, and water droplets trail down Arthur’s face like tears. Merlin gently pries Arthur’s hands away. “I’m fine, really.” Arthur gives him a hard look, and Merlin looks to Gwaine for support. Instead his friend shows uncharacteristic concern.

“You were drowning,” Arthur repeats, and Merlin gives a half-hearted shrug. 

“I was dreaming of being burned. My magic must have panicked.” He gives a small smile. “I’m fine.” 

“If you say I’m fine one more time, Merlin, I swear—“ 

Merlin swats him away. “You’re the king, you prat. Get some sleep. Gwaine’ll make sure I don’t drown myself.” He puts a hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “Go back to bed before I give you donkey ears again.”

Arthur stares at him uncertainly, as if he is unwilling to let go. “I forbid you to die by drowning yourself in your sleep like an idiot, Merlin.” 

Merlin rolls his eyes and dismisses Arthur with a wave of his hand. Normally, Arthur would say something about how he gives the orders, but instead, pulls Merlin into a brief hug. 

Merlin has no idea to do with that, so he sits stiffly until Arthur quietly withdraws and leaves the room. 

“He seemed odd,” Merlin says after a few moments of silence, turning to Gwaine. Gwaine, who’s still regarding him with an uncharacteristically worried air and who sits next to him on the mattress without saying anything. 

It squishes under his weight, and Merlin wordlessly dries it out. 

“He seemed odd?” Gwaine’s cheekiness is back, but he looks at Merlin with an intensity he usually hides behind ale. “You, my friend, are what I’m worried about.” He clears his throat. “You know I’m not the type to ask questions, but shit, Merlin. I couldn’t sleep and I walked by, and there was this noise and you were just lying there with all this water drowning you. I couldn’t wake you up and the princess ran in here and pulled you out. It was terrifying, Merlin, and that’s coming from me.” 

Merlin rubs his hands over his eyes. “I’m sorry for worrying you.” He runs his hand through his now dry hair. “Want to go for a walk? I’m not going to sleep again.”

It happens again. And again, and again. Merlin wants it to be some sort of enchantment, even thinks it is for awhile because Arthur is the only one who can wake him up. But in his heart, he knows if it is any magic, it’s just his own.

Kilgarrah died almost a year ago, and his mother a year before that, and now Gaius is gone. His mentors, some of the few with knowledge of the old ways, slip slowly through his fingers. He feels alone and scared the way he did when he was fifteen and unable to control any of his magic.

It isn’t even a waterfall anymore. It’s a small, suffocating cloud that filled his nostrils and mouth until he can’t breathe and has to be pulled awake by Arthur.

Eventually, he moves into the chambers right next to Arthur’s, just in case. It’s only once every few weeks, but it’s often enough that Arthur insists Merlin is close by.

Then one night, Arthur sits on Merlin’s bed with him, staring into the darkness.

“It’s funny,” Merlin says, poking at the mattress, “I never dreamed about being burnt when Uther was king.” 

It makes Arthur’s chest hurt, to think of what he used to think of magic, what he used to say, so he doesn’t say anything for a long time.

Then, once the remark has lost its potency, he looks at Merlin. “I promise, I’ll never let anyone hurt you.”

Merlin grins in the dark. “That’s my job, you prat.” And the distance of the past years is gone, and it’s like they’re back in Ealdor, boys preparing to fight men.

They say small, meaningless things for hours until they’re both asleep, and they both dream of nothing. After that, Arthur begins making excuses to stay in Merlin’s bed sometimes. Then sometimes becomes almost always, and the king who once said he’d rather die than share his bed with his manservant is praying silently every night the man doesn’t throw him out of it.

It’s been three years since Gwen left, since they both began losing the people they loved, and the only thing Arthur regrets is how he’s never felt properly sad about it. He hopes she’s happy, wherever she is.

And it’s nice, in a way. Merlin and Arthur rarely get to just enjoy each other’s company anymore, and he doesn’t think Gwen would’ve been happy if he frequented Merlin’s bed more often than she’d ever frequented his.

Merlin doesn’t ask why it’s always his bed they end up in.

They write, Merlin and Gwen, sometimes. Not often enough. Merlin knows how things fell apart between her and Arthur, but she was his best friend for a decade. He misses that, the easy camaraderie before they each had the weight of the kingdom on their shoulders. 

Then one morning, Merlin shoos away George and brings up breakfast for Arthur like he did for so long but with an extra plate. He’d wished for this so often as Arthur’s manservant, but when it became possible, it slipped away. 

Merlin is too busy and Arthur is too busy and something changed between them when Arthur almost died in Merlin’s arms and now all Merlin wants to do is hold Arthur forever, so he’s pulled away instead.

But now, sitting at the same table, the last piece of the puzzle slides into place. 

During a council meeting one autumn, a lord is persistent about Arthur marrying. “It’s been three years,” he says, his rich chestnut hair bouncing on his forehead as he speaks passionately, “Camelot is strong, but we must not blind ourselves to the outside world. Our allies are contentious, our crops are uncertain. What will we do if Mercia and Essetir go to war? What if there is a bad winter?”

There are mumbles of agreement around the table, and Merlin watches Arthur’s tired face stir.

“And what would a marriage do to dissuade an uncertain future? Camelot is sure; she will weather any uncertainties with resilience.”

Merlin tries to catch Arthur’s eye in support, a habit still strong from his days as a servant, but the lord is adamant. “Why, my Lord, will you not consider taking a new wife?” 

And for the briefest moment, Arthur’s eyes flick to Merlin, and he looks so sad that Merlin wants to take him by the hand and transport them somewhere far away, where they might just sit in peace forever.

“Our alliances are firm. Our friends are many. There is no need to join kingdoms in marriage that are already joined in mutual trust and respect.”

Merlin knows Arthur, knows the way his words fall so precisely into place when he’s telling a well-practiced lie, so he sees how the words drip with half-truths. And if he couldn’t see it there, it’s in Arthur’s guarded eyes. 

The nights Merlin goes without dreams turn into weeks, and then months, but Arthur still ends up in his bed almost every night. 

He jolts awake sometimes, and Merlin wonders as sits in the dark, waiting to hear Arthur’s breathing slow, if he remembers what it was like to die.

Merlin wonders what it is like to die.

He isn’t sure he’ll ever learn.

It scares him, as years pass and he sees the age in Arthur’s eyes. He sees age in his own as well, but whether it will lead to the same end, he doesn’t know.

The world moves slowly and quickly all at once, as if Merlin is watching a tree grow from a seed while a fire ravages the forest around him. It burns in him, the knowing that something in the world is not right, but he watches Arthur stand firm and decides he will prevail by whatever means he is required to.

“I don’t think it’s meant to be like this,” Arthur tells him one night, speaking into the darkness. It’s the first time he’s acknowledged Merlin’s listening ears in all the years they’ve kept their arrangement, and it takes Merlin a long time to speak.

“But it is.” Then Arthur sits up, his hand rubbing his cleanly-shaven cheeks. Merlin mirrors him, and then they’re sitting cross-legged on the bed, facing each other like children playing whispered Truth or Dare by candlelight.

“I was meant to die,” Arthur says, “and I didn’t, and the world can’t move on.” Merlin shakes his head to protest, but Arthur’s eyes on him burn even in the darkness. “You must feel it, Merlin. You of all people.”

Merlin can feel it. There is a Before and an After, and the mark between them is Arthur’s death. There was never enough time in the Before, when Merlin spent every day hiding and protecting and praying Arthur would see the next day. And there is the After, where the feels the world suspended without purpose because the true king of Albion still walks an earth that is unsure how to precede with him in it.

“Fate is a fickle thing, Arthur. You can’t allow what might have been to drown you.”

Then Arthur laughs, the sudden sound brazen in the near-silence.

“My life is made of things that might have been.”

Merlin needs to see what he means by that, why the air suddenly feels so thick, so he casts a wordless charm stringing little golden lights around their heads.

Arthur is closer than he thought. His eyes burn as he takes in Merlin’s face, bordering between panic and amusement and desperation.

“What are we doing?” Merlin stays silent as Arthur continues searching his expression for something, anything to go on. “What are we doing?” His head tips up as he laughs again, tears in his eyes glistening with reflections of the small lights flitting around their heads.

Merlin doesn’t know how to reply, so he reaches out with his magic and hopes Arthur will understand everything he is for once unable to say.

It seems to work. Arthur’s eyes flutter shut, a few tears pushing past his lashes and dripping onto his lap. Merlin can see the panic begin to dissolve as Arthur’s muscles slowly relax. Time turns languid, and Merlin isn’t sure how long it is before Arthur begins to blink.

When his eyes open again, the piercing blue pushes past Merlin’s carefully set face and into the uncertainty underneath.

“What are we doing, Merlin?” A real question, this time. Not about the past or the future but _now_.

Merlin expects the answer he finds to scare him, but when he finally settles on it in his mind, his lips curl in an involuntary grin.

“Why do you always expect me to know the answers to everything? I do have my limits.”

Then Arthur is grinning too. “Please, Merlin, as if you’ve ever given a helpful answer to anything in your life.”

As they smile at each other, unfettered by daylight, the veil of uncertainty that has hidden the world from their view for so long is lifted. Merlin watches Arthur’s eyes brighten as the fullness of his world returns, and with it, Merlin feels his slip back into place. Arthur reaches out to cover Merlin’s hand with his own, his eyes never faltering as he allows Merlin to fill every inch of his vision.

Merlin realizes, as Arthur’s cool hand meets his, that the world was not thrown out of balance when Arthur refused death. For a moment, he understands what a world out of balance would be: a half missing from its other, an emptiness that would always linger. He sees the years of sorrow so clearly that he laces their fingers together, as if holding on now will save Arthur from anything that might have been.

No, the world became static when two halves refused to be whole. Merlin could laugh at their stupidity, their pride, their stubbornness. And he does—he allows himself to laugh with the lightness the world holds once more.

He doesn’t need to explain to Arthur, because he’s begun laughing as well and Merlin knows he’s understood everything as well.

“We’re ridiculous, aren’t we?” Arthur says when their laughter finally devolves into twitching lips and bright eyes, and Merlin raises his eyebrows.

“Well of course _you’re_ ridiculous. I haven’t done a ridiculous thing in my life.”

Then they’re laughing again, and the first hints of sunlight streak through the window.


End file.
